


On Education

by lost_spook



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Community: b7friday, Gen, Post Gauda Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avon and Vila are probably the last people in the universe who should be bringing up a small girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Education

**Author's Note:**

> For the b7friday challenge ‘Hope’ jaxomsride wrote [this story](http://community.livejournal.com/b7friday/477545.html#cutid1) (in which Avon and Vila escape Gauda Prime, along with an abandoned baby girl). I said it was definitely one to induce sequelitis, to which Jaxomsride kindly said, “Be my guest.” Anything else is my fault.

“I’m worried,” announced Vila as he came through the doorway. “I don’t like it.”

Avon didn’t look up. “I’m not sure I can even work up the interest to ask: what this time?”

“Hope.”

Avon did turn around then, abandoning the technical work to give him a stare that made Vila shift away. “And what do you mean by that?”

“Well, it’s no life for a little girl, is it?” he said. “For one thing, she ought to have a woman round the place.” Vila’s face grew wistful. “We could all use a woman round the place.”

Avon shrugged. “Be my guest – go and find one. Take as long as you want – although I suppose that’s barely worth saying. You’re not going to find females falling over themselves to come with _you_.”

“Anyway,” continued Vila, “what about her education?”

He frowned. “I thought we’d covered that.”

“What we’ve covered is how to be a computer genius and steal things.” Vila considered. “Plus your basic reading and writing. And magic tricks.”

“And that isn’t sufficient?”

Vila sighed. “It doesn’t seem right to me, that’s all. I don’t like it. Anything happens to us and what’s a six year old girl who’s a technical whizz with a talent for sleight of hand supposed to do?”

“Considerably more than a six year old girl who _isn’t_.”

“I blame you. You shouldn’t have been giving her circuit boards to play with when she was a baby.”

“You made up for it with endless inanities. Someone had to instruct the child on more important matters.”

Vila sighed again. “Well, I don’t like it.”

“We’re rebels, Vila. What else are we supposed to do? Abduct a suitable teacher?”

*

It was a good few hours before Avon’s vague relief that he hadn’t seen Vila in a while turned into irritating anxiety over his not having seen Vila for a long while. It usually meant he was doing something Avon would rather he didn’t.

He summoned the six year old they’d been arguing over, and surveyed the girl from his full height, before reflecting that Vila might have a point when he said it was things like this that made her nervous of him. He crouched down. “Hope, have you seen Vila?”

“He said not to say. He said you wouldn’t like it.”

Avon faced her. “Did the idiot by any chance promise to go and get you a tutor? Possibly even a mother?”

She bit her lip, and nodded.

“Then I suppose we had better go after him and avert whatever disaster he’s initiated this time,” he returned.

Vila might worry about the girl’s education, but he found her far more intelligent than the thief, so he was cautiously optimistic for the future. (He had, he thought, omitted to mention how good her piloting skills were growing to be.)

He strode onwards, and Hope followed him back to the main deck.


End file.
